February 26, 2009

The Morning Wrap

Tracking the Gun Trade: With a headline that calls the United States an “arms bazaar” for Mexican drug cartels, The New York Times reports on the cross-border trade in firearms. The two countries have very different approaches to gun control, the Times reports, with Mexico requiring that citizens get approval from the military to buy guns and prohibiting them from owning large-caliber rifles or high-powered pistols, which are considered military weapons. Coincidentally, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. reiterated the Obama administration’s support Wednesday for a new ban on “assault weapons.”

Who Must Disclose?:The Los Angeles Times reports that a recent ruling on Montana campaign finance disclosure requirements from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit could have implications for the heated legal debate in California over donors to the Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage. “The cavalry just came over the hillside,” one lawyer for pro-Proposition 8 donors tellsThe Recorder.

In the Dog House, Literally: The late Leona Helmsley’s dogs might not become so wealthy after all, The Wall Street Journal reports. A New York judge has ruled that trustees managing the deceased hotel mogul’s fortune can distribute the funds to charitable causes they deem appropriate, despite Helmsley’s instructions that money go toward “purposes related to the provision of care for dogs.”

In the Dog House, Figuratively: Speaking of New York judges, a family judge there is facing discipline for repeatedly requiring her secretary to perform personal chores. The New York Law Journal reports via Law.com that Judge Dandrea Ruhlmann required her secretary, who was also a longtime friend, to babysit her children and type documents for her husband. The secretary-friend later secretly recorded a conversation in which the judge told her it was her job to do the work given.